Alan and Pat live and work in Bordeaux. Alan is a pastor and Pat was a nurse. Now we work with UFM worldwide. Read on! (If you'd like to know what took us to Bordeaux, then start with the archives from September 2004)

Wednesday, February 05, 2014

"It's a man's life..."

As we clung to the scree slope on the side of Cader Idris, glancing at the murky waters below, creeping round looking for tiny ferns, the cheery voice of Dr Agnew rang out,

"It's a man's life in the Botany department!"

Since then I worked in computing - and there were days when it took all my determination to walk the corridor into the office - not many days like that, but there were some.

For the most part my colleagues were charming, happy, friendly, clever people with whom one could easily spend 8 hours working, chatting and sharing life. I miss them still, twenty-three years later.

There were some who were unreasonable, or abusive. And I had some DREADFUL bosses, of course. But most of my bosses were fine people, and they understood that I regarded them as my servants, helpful drudges who did all the boring tasks of planning, reporting and going to meetings so that I could spend my time solving puzzles on the computer.

Since then I've been in pastoral ministry.

Some things are much easier. Some things are harder. But on the whole pastoral ministry is muchmoredemanding. Never think it is a cushy number.

This post has been sparked by some more sad news of missionaries and pastors feeling the pressure.